


like a wave that crashed & melted on the shore

by anemicaxolotl



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions, also plot holes abound, because apparently that is the only episode i think i'm allowed to write about lol, idk i just wanted some trobed angst today, references to geothermal escapism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27841315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemicaxolotl/pseuds/anemicaxolotl
Summary: Something big is going to happen today. Abed knows this because when he wakes up, his apartment is flooded.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 24
Kudos: 100





	like a wave that crashed & melted on the shore

**Author's Note:**

> Like Geothermal Escapism, but with less lava! 
> 
> (Mild warning: I don't think Abed's crazy but he calls himself crazy in this the same way he does in Geothermal Escapism, etc. so if that word is bothersome just a head's up that it's used here.)
> 
> Title is from "I Know the End" by Phoebe Bridgers (my #4 most played artist on my Spotify wrapped playlist tyvm)

Something big is going to happen today. Abed knows this because when he wakes up, his apartment is flooded.

It isn’t really, though. It can’t be. For one thing, he’s on the eighth floor, so unless some biblical, _The Day After Tomorrow_ -like flooding has taken over Los Angeles, there’s no way water would make it up the entire building into his apartment. And even if the plumbing in his unit went haywire and flooded his tiny studio, he’s got electronics plugged in everywhere. Surely something would have caused a fire by now, or at least some sparks.

Abed doesn’t really feel crazy most days in Los Angeles. Sure, he works crazy hours and dreams up crazy scenarios for the crazy show he writes for, but it’s been a while since he _himself_ has felt crazy. Los Angeles is good for him. There are people like him everywhere – people obsessed with TV and movies, people who see the world a little differently, people interested in dating people for who they are rather than their gender. He’s never felt ashamed of who he is, but in LA, it’s easier to be himself than it’s ever been.

But still – the stop motion Christmas. The darkest timeline. The lava. He tries not to think about it too often, but he remembers it all. He may be a successful television writer who has built a fulfilling life for himself in California, but sometimes he still feels like the panicked college student who tried to cut off his friend’s arm with a bone saw. The same scared kid who faked his own death and lives like a clone of himself because he still can't deal with –

It doesn’t matter. Abed knows the water is fake this time, and that’s got to mean growth, so he tries not to worry as much as he probably should. He swings his feet out of bed, and when they land on the ground, he can see them through the gently lapping waves. The water is clear like crystal, and that makes it easier to act like it isn’t really there, which it’s not.

Abed knows it’s not real because the water smells like salt, like the sea.

* * *

Abed and his two closest work friends are the same kind of excruciating perfectionists, so they end up working late together more often than not. It’s dark out by the time Abed gets off at his bus stop and walks the last couple blocks to his apartment. He’s dodging puddles everywhere, enormous puddles that look more like tide pools and can’t possibly be real. They still demand most of his attention, just in case – so much so that he almost misses the man sitting on the curb in front of his building until he hears his name.

“Abed!”

Abed stops dead in his tracks, his hand on the door and his back to the street. A few pieces fall into place in his head: Annie’s frequent but increasingly stilted phone calls over the past week, her insistence on knowing his work schedule, her nervous laughter. So that’s where the water is coming from. In terms of narrative symmetry, he supposes it makes a frustrating kind of sense.

It does nothing to temper the flames suddenly smoldering in his chest. His grip tightens, and he wrenches the door open. “You can’t be real,” he says with a quiet sort of rage, and slips inside without looking back. Behind him, he hears the door stay open for a moment too long, as if the voice’s owner has yanked it back open and slipped inside behind him.

“Abed? Abed, please–”

“You’re not real,” Abed repeats as he makes his way up the stairs, water rushing down the steps like a halfhearted waterfall. _That’s not real, either,_ he reminds himself, _so this must be fake, too._ “I thought I wasn’t crazy anymore but every room I’ve been in today has been flooded so I guess I’m just as crazy as I always was.”

“Wait, what do you mean? Is this like the lava again?”

Abed doesn’t speak, trudging up the last few flights of stairs in silence, listening to the sounds of the man panting behind him but refusing to turn around. He opens his apartment door without a word and steps inside, hearing a second set of footsteps follow him in.

He drops his bag on the cramped table and kicks his shoes off. They sink through the shallow waves to rest on the floor. In fact, nothing is floating in his apartment – another reminder that this isn’t real. But the footsteps behind him had sounded solid, and the breathing of the other man in the room is even and measured. It sounds realistic. In fact, it sounds real.

It’s almost enough to make Abed turn around.

He hesitates, though, clenching and unclenching a fist at his side. “Your tracker didn’t move for _months,”_ Abed forces out. “Months. You stopped answering emails and they – we all thought you were dead.” He shakes his head. “They did. I never wanted to. But they convinced me, and Annie made me delete my tracker app. So I had no way of knowing.”

He takes a deep breath and then continues, all in a rush, “But a year later I redownloaded it and suddenly your tracker was moving again, except you were on the other side of the world and we hadn’t heard from you in over a year. So what were we supposed to think? That the pirates killed you and moved your body across the globe? That you were in witness protection and none of us would ever get to see you again? That you escaped the pirates but then faked your own death and decided never to talk to us again?”

He hears a sharp intake of breath behind him, but he squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to continue. “I was okay with letting you go because I thought you would come back, but you never reached out and you _never came back.”_

For a second there’s no sound in the apartment but the rushing of waves over Abed’s feet and the shaky exhales behind him. But then: “But I did. I did come back.”

Abed finally turns around at that, and sure enough, there he is, red duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Scruffily bearded, long-haired, a little broader in the shoulders. But he smiles when Abed turns around, and that part hasn’t changed. As much as Abed’s imagined it over the years, it’s not something he thinks his brain could easily fake.

Troy is in his apartment. Troy is in his apartment, and he’s smiling through tears, and he might even be real.

“Abed,” he breathes, his gentle voice cushioning the syllables of his name, and that’s how Abed knows for certain that this is real.

“Troy,” he answers, voice breaking just a little as Troy drops his bag to the ground, and then all at once they’re crossing the small room to meet in the middle together.

Troy holds him like he’s a life raft in a storm, burying his face into Abed’s chest and sobbing brokenly against him. He gasps out apologies and desperate pleas for forgiveness, and Abed feels something in him crack. All the anger he’s been holding drains out of him and is washed away by the tide swirling around his ankles.

“We were held captive for months,” Troy finally says shakily, when his breathing has calmed, “and they took everything – my phone, laptop, all of it. And then when were finally rescued I – I didn’t know what to say. It was scary and embarrassing and I couldn’t tell you guys I was failing spectacularly at all of this, because…if I couldn’t even do it right it was all for nothing.” His eyes shine as he pulls back to look at Abed. “Leaving you would have been for nothing.”

“So instead you just let us think you were dead for three years,” Abed says stiffly, but his hand comes up to rest against Troy’s face – touching him just to be sure he’s real.

“I know it was awful. But I didn’t even get a phone for months after we were freed. And then I didn’t know how to get in touch with any of you. And I realize I could have contacted Greendale to see if you were all still there, but by that point…I was worried you wouldn’t be. I was afraid you had all moved on without me.”

There’s no accusation in his voice, but something inside Abed twists guiltily, anyway, because the fact is that he did move on. They all did, because they had to.

“I couldn’t keep waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen,” he finally whispers. “You got on a boat and you never came back and I just had to accept it. I had to grow up and move on.”

Troy shakes his head quickly. “But I _did_ come back, Abed. I’m here now. For real. Forever.”

 _Forever._ It echoes in Abed’s head like a bell, but he shakes his head, too. “Prove it,” he demands, his voice weaker than he wants it to be.

But Troy doesn’t seem to mind. He gently threads a hand through Abed’s hair, rising up on his tiptoes to meet him and capture his lips in a determined kiss.

Abed’s hands catch Troy’s waist and pull him closer, sighing into the kiss and letting his eyes fall shut. If this is fake, he doesn’t ever want to know. He wants to stay locked in this fantasy for the rest of his life. But he feels goosebumps on Troy’s skin under his fingertips, and hears the soft noises Troy’s making, and feels the firm press of Troy’s chest against his own, and it starts to dawn on him that this isn’t a fantasy, not a dream, not a nightmare. This is what he’s been waiting for, his season seven, the ideal episode he’d pictured all that time ago in the study room, surrounded by his friends.

And then he thinks, no, that’s not what this is at all. This is real life, and it’s better than he ever imagined.

“I want you to stay with me,” he whispers against Troy’s lips. “Forever. Please.” Troy sighs and nods, frantically, wrapping his arms even more tightly around Abed, like he can’t imagine ever letting go.

All at once, Abed hears a rushing in his ears as the tide recedes around him. He pulls back and opens his eyes to watch the water vanish from the room, and he smiles at Troy’s confused look.

“Narrative symmetry,” he explains. “I knew something big was happening today because every room looked flooded. Remember when I saw lava because I was afraid to let you leave? Today I was seeing water everywhere because…I guess I was afraid to let you come back. But I’m not afraid anymore.”

He smiles and grips Troy even more tightly, loving the way Troy settles into his arms like it’s where he belongs. “Welcome home,” he says softly, before leaning in to steal another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~(Can we just pretend after the pirate situation Troy had a lovely leisurely trip around the world please thanks)~~ also please join me in ignoring the numerous plot holes in this 
> 
> Idk you ever just have a bad day and want to read some Trobed angst? That's all this is. If you read this I'm sorry for wasting your time but thank you for reading lol. I'm @ slutabed on tumblr trying to fill the void now that I've finally finished watching Community. 
> 
> *also I don't remember who it was who pointed out in the server that Troy always says Abed's name so gently but there is a line in here dedicated to that sentiment and to you bc that concept lives rent-free in my mind so thank you for that whomever you are lol*


End file.
